This followed yesterday’s announcement by Prime Minister Najib Razak that satellite data analysis concluded the plane went down in the Indian Ocean west of Australia — 2,500km south-west of Perth.

China’s government wants access to that data.

Most of the passengers were Chinese.

MH370 was lost on March 8, with 239 people on board, heading from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing.

Relatives of those who disappeared marched in protest to Malaysia’s embassy in the Chinese capital, demanding ‘truth’, after the emotionally agonising wait for news about what happened. They accused the Malaysian government of ‘deception’.

The search for any wreckage has been suspended by bad weather.

Before the press conference, the Transport Minister said the area was now more focused, though the exact site of the disaster was still unknown.

The search is now in its third week; the power source in the black box flight recorders is designed to last for 30 days.